Preserving biodiversity is no longer an altruistic enterprise—it’s a matter of human survival.

Without nature, we're toast. We really need this to “sink in” before it’s too late. The mysterious collapse of bee colonies around the world threatens all the crops they pollinate. The alarming die-off of North American bats is wiping out a major insect predator that prevents our harvests from becoming bug food. The acidification and warming of the oceans undermines the survival of the corals and zooplankton that sustain the marine food chain.

We have to stop thinking of “nature” as something we visit while camping or watch on the Discovery channel. Nature purifies our water, pollinates our crops, regulates our climate, recycles our wastes and provides us with food, clothing, medicine and shelter. We can’t survive without it. Preserving biodiversity isn’t about saving charismatic creatures—it’s about saving ourselves.

California State University, East Bay is the San Francisco East Bay Area's high-access public university of choice. CSUEB serves the region with campuses in Hayward and Concord, a professional development center in Oakland,
and an innovative online campus. With an enrollment of more than 14,000, the University offers a nationally
recognized freshman year experience, award-winning curriculum, personalized instruction, and expert faculty.
Students choose from among more than 100 professionally focused fields of study for which the University confers
bachelor's and master's degrees, as well as an Ed.D. in education. Named a "Best in the West" college, as well as a
Best Business School, by the influential Princeton Review, Cal State East Bay is among the region's foremost
producers of teachers, business professionals and entrepreneurs, public administrators, health professionals,
literary and performing artists, and science and math graduates.